Time for the most recent entry in our second NBA Tuesday miniseries! We had a new NBA champion this season, as one of the original ABA teams finally ascended to the throne of professional basketball in North America. In fact, this team had never reached the NBA Finals before, although it did make an ABA Finals appearance in that league’s final season way back when. But we digress … read on and enjoy our analysis!

2023 NBA FINALS MVP: Nikola Jokić, C, Denver (original, confirmed)

The Denver Nuggets dropped the Miami Heat in 5 games, outscoring their opponents by 8.2 ppg overall. The Heat surprised people by making the Finals as the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference, and then Miami actually stole Game 2 on the road against Denver. Alas, the Nuggets overpowered the Heat at that point, winning the last three games of the Finals by an average of 11.0 ppg, behind star center Nikola Jokić.

Jokić has won some hardware before, of course: the league MVP in both 2021 and 2022. Even though he didn’t win it in 2023, he still topped the league again in a lot of sabermetrics. Instead, this year, he won the Finals MVP vote based on these Finals stats: 30.2 ppg, 14.0 rpg, and 7.2 apg. Jokić actually posted two triple doubles in the series against Miami, including his unheardof 32-21-10 effort in Game 3. Yeah, he’s the MVP.

2023 NBA DPOY: Jaren Jackson, Jr., C, Memphis (original); Nic Claxton, C, Brooklyn (revised)

With just 3.8 defensive Win Shares, the vote win went to Memphis Grizzlies center Jaren Jackson, Jr. We usually have had a 5.0 DWS threshold for this award, but no one in the league topped that mark. Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Evan Mobley (4.8), Brooklyn Nets C Nic Claxton (4.0), Philadelphia 76ers C Joel Embiid (3.9), Jackson, and Miami C Bam Adebayo (3.8) were the top guys on our list of DPOY contenders.

We eliminated Milwaukee Bucks C Brook Lopez (3.9) and Bucks PF Giannis Antetokounmpo (3.7) for being teammates, of course. We think Jackson won the award for playing just 63 games and having a huge impact when healthy, but … we’re not sold on that theory. Our usual is about playoff qualification and difference making, so where does that leave us with these top five defenders and their postseason impact?

This is the margin-for-error tally: Philadelphia (15), Memphis (12), Cleveland (12), Brooklyn (6), and Miami (5). Normally, we’d go with Adebayo here, but we know he played with our choice for the league MVP, so that diminishes his defensive value a little bit, with that kind of help. We actually like Claxton for this award, though, considering Brooklyn dumped its biggest stars midseason and still managed a postseason slot.

He finished ninth in the voting, but his numbers—6.8 defensive boards per game, 2.5 blocks per game, and 0.9 steals per game—suggest he was very underrated. Without him, the Nets fall deeper into the Eastern Conference hierarchy and end up in a play-in situation where they probably do not advance to the final eight teams in the postseason. That’s a big impact in our way of thinking, so there it is. He wins this trophy.